Climate change had been a subject at CERAWeek for years, but at last week’s virtual conference energy transition dominated many of the sessions of the annual event by IHS Markit. The 2021 event attracted a record 19,000 delegates with a theme of “The New Map: Energy, Environment and Charting the Future” recognizing the industry’s acceleration during the past year in environmental priorities and the move toward decarbonization and net-zero goals. Other topics included carbon capture and other new technologies, growing importance of data and pandemic’s effect on global demand.
Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told delegates, “There’s been a great acceleration of technology that had begun to be available to our business, but there was perhaps a bit of reluctance to see them accelerate into use, and now we have no choice.”